FOR a number of years it has been borne in upon me by experience in teaching and in conversation with colleagues that an urgent Egyptological requirement of the present day is an Egyptian dictionary which on the one hand shall contain those words which a third-year undergraduate or an epigraphist in the field is most likely to meet in the course of his regular work, with textual or bibliographical references, and yet which shall be sufficiently concise to be reasonably portable and not excessively costly. In the nature of things no attempt to combine these incompatibles can be wholly successful, but the need for such a book seemed to me to demand that the effort be made; apart from the invaluable Vocabulary to Sir Alan Gardiner’s Egyptian Grammar there is no modern dictionary of Ancient Egyptian in English, and no modern general vocabulary in any tongue which provides references apart from the costly Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache in several volumes, which is not only the very reverse of portable, but is also beyond the reach of most students and scholars of the present day, who to consult it must perforce have access to a specialized library. This book is therefore addressed primarily to the younger practitioners of Egyptology, though it is hoped that others may sometimes find it useful. The present work has been designed as a concise dictionary of Middle Egyptian, since it is that phase of the language which has the widest general application. For the purpose of this book the term ‘Middle Egyptian’ has been taken as including texts from the Heracleopolitan period to the end of the Eighteenth Dynasty, omitting the Late Egyptian locutions which begin to appear from the reign of Amenophis II onward. This exclusion applies also to words or meanings not recorded before the Nineteenth Dynasty, with a few exceptions the reasons for which will be clear. It has proved desirable, however, to include references to Old Egyptian sources rather more frequently, since these at times shed light on the original significance of a word or provide instances of obvious relevance to Middle Egyptian usage; also the older texts often show the basic forms of words that have undergone phonetic change by the Middle Kingdom. On the other hand, old words which do not appear to occur in Middle Egyptian texts have not been recorded here apart from a very few instances where the reason for inclusion will again be obvious. On the other hand, certain Middle Egyptian words and phrases have been omitted by intent. These comprise most of the technical terms of the mathematical and medical texts which do not belong to everyday parlance; for these, the specialized works on such texts should be consulted. In order to save space I have omitted also those words whose meaning is unknown, as well as’ the names of unidentified species of animals, plants, and minerals; the broad categories of these items can often be gathered] from the determinatives, and their inclusion would have added unprofitable bulk to the book. When such words have been included, it is usually because they have received discussion in print. The names of only the most important deities and localities have been noted; for the others, works on religion and geography should be consulted. The method adopted to display the words is in essence that of the Vocabulary to Gardiner’s Egyptian Grammar; first comes what may be considered a typical writing of the word in question, and this is followed by (a) the transliteration into modern characters; (b) the meaning, marked with a double underline; (c) a reference or references to texts displaying that meaning, or to works where the word is discussed; and (d) variant writings, also with references. These last do not pretend to be exhaustive, but display only significant differences; thus the occasional omission of a determinative, or the interchange of, and have not usually been noted. In those scenes from tombs where we see pictures of animals and the like with their names written above them, I have where possible treated these pictures as determinatives, justifying this course by the close interdependence of script and picture in Ancient Egypt. The alphabetic arrangement of this dictionary is that usual in works of his nature, with the proviso that I have followed Gardiner in treating and as one letter s. Where the existence of original (z) can be established from Old Egyptian texts, the earlier reading has been indicated in brackets at the first occurrence of a stem, e.g. Asx (Azx). Apart from such instances, the interchange of and as sole variant has usually not been noted. Following the practice of Erman and Grapow, Wörterbuch der ägyptischen Sprache, causative verbs in s have been entered under that letter and not under the parent stem. In order to attain maximum compression, the meanings given do not attempt to indicate the finer nuances, but generally are on broad lines; in some more important instances the provision of a larger number of references than usual will enable the student who looks them up to ascertain for himself something of the finer shades of meaning. On the other hand, there are words such as sp and sor where the demands of clarity have necessitated the quotation of original passages, usually in transliteration. The bibliographical references to be found scattered throughout this book, sometimes as a ‘blanket’ citation covering the whole range of meaning of a word, are mostly confined to the last half century, the earliest work to be cited extensively being Gardiner’s Admonitions of an Egyptian Sage (Leipzig, 1909). As a rule, though not invariably, a given citation refers to the most recent discussion of a word. The variant writings, if any, are normally collected at the end of each article, but often they are embodied in the text in order to avoid an unnecessary repetition of references. The abbreviations employed are explained in the lists which follow. Since the nature of a word is usually obvious at a glance, such abbreviations as n. (noun), adj. (adjective), and the like have been inserted only where circumstances demand them; the adjective-verb has been deemed to be but an extension of its basic adjective and has not been distinguished from it. Among the verbs, only the geminatae and ultimate infirmed classes have been specified as such; all unspecified verbs are to be regarded as immutable. In a compilation such as the present work, containing more than 5,000 entries, the compiler in the nature of things owes much indeed to the researches of others. To mention names here would be invidious, but a glance at the list of works cited will show clearly enough the extent to which the present author has depended on the labours of other scholars, and to all such, whether personally known or unknown to him, he now makes due acknowledgement. To the Trustees of Sir Alan Gardiner’s Settlement for Egyptological Purposes is owed an especial debt of gratitude, inasmuch as it is they who have made possible the publication of this work at a very moderate price.
Author: RAYMOND O. FAULKNER D.LIT., F.S.A
Format: PDF
Year: 2017
Pages: 500
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